The Photon and the Wave, by Walter Smith
Marian McKenzie 3-15-05
(To the tune of “Let's Call the Whole Thing Off”, aka
"You Say Tomahto and I Say Tomayto", by Ira Gershwin)

In 1905, Einstein had a "miraculous
year", in which he explained Brownian motion, explained the photoelectric
effect, and developed special relativity. This song traces the history
of the debate over the wave-particle duality concerning light, leading
to Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect. Five years
previously, Max Planck had resolved the "ultraviolet catastrophe"
by assuming that light was divided into pieces, each of which had
energy h-bar times omega, where h-bar is "Planck's constant"
and omega is the angular frequency of the light. However, he didn't
take this idea literally -- it was merely a mathematical trick that
led to the right answer. However, Einstein did take the idea more
seriously, and used it to explain the puzzling photoelectric effect.
Einstein got his Nobel prizefor the photoelectric effect, in part
because his explanation led directly to the development of quantum
mechanics.